Another Great Moment in First World Problems

Though you might be enticed by the idea of a fried, breaded shell with nothing but space in the middle, McDonald’s customers are coming out against the fast food chain for an egregious lack of cheese in the chain’s new mozzarella sticks. Because without the mozzarella, it’s just a sad, hollow stick that once possibly contained cheese. McDonald’s recently announced that it would be adding mozzarella sticks to menus nationwide in 2016, as part of its McPick $2 menu. They’re also available on their own at a price of $1 for three sticks. Customers who were, understandably, expecting cheese to be a part of the menu item have been airing their grievances on Twitter with photos showing orders of mozzarella sticks without that one very important ingredient (h/t Business Insider). They’re ticked because no one wants to pay for fried air, at least not when you’re expecting ooey, gooey, fried cheese.

There are no lack of truly pressing and challenging problems we humans grapple with in today’s world: income inequality, no new Game of Thrones episodes, lack of health care, Tom Brady’s endorsement of Donald Trump. People are legitimately suffering- “When will the McRib sandwich return??”- but suffering, as with so many things in life, is decidedly relative.

In this case, McDonald’s customers are “suffering” through something of an existential crisis: Should fried mozzarella sticks not contain mozzarella? If a mozzarella stick falls in the forest and is found to have no cheese inside, can it even be called a mozzarella stick? I mean, what can you even call a mozzarella stick that’s devoid of mozzarella? Does a customer not have a right to expect to find mozzarella when they purchase mozzarella sticks? Is this just some weird example of performance art gone terribly, horribly wrong? Is this all there is to life?

I don’t know that I care to tackle such weighty philosophical questions about fast food, other than to say McDonald’s is to food what Ammon Bundy is to constitutional scholarship. If your biggest problem is that your fried mozzarella sticks are served up free of actual cheesy mozzarella goodness, I’d submit you’re leading a charmed existence, don’tchathink?